One of the key elements underlying the rage that voters feel
toward California’s legislators as manifest in last Tuesday’s
massive protest vote is the outrageous disconnect between the
overall voting mandate of the electorate versus the actual make-up
of both the Assembly and the Senate.
One of the key elements underlying the rage that voters feel toward California’s legislators as manifest in last Tuesday’s massive protest vote is the outrageous disconnect between the overall voting mandate of the electorate versus the actual make-up of both the Assembly and the Senate.
In the 2002 general election, the Democrat, Gray Davis, received 47.3 percent of the vote. Taking the vote for governor as an indicator of the overall make-up of the electorate on a statewide basis, this would indicate a similar split might also apply in the Legislature. Wrong. The make-up of the Assembly is presently 60 percent Democrat, 40 percent Republican. On the Senate side, the split is 25/15 of 62.5 percent for the Democrats. Stated another way, 47.3 percent of the voters are controlling 60 percent and 62.5 percent, respectively, of the Legislature.
Fast forward now to the election of Oct. 7. The vote not to recall the governor was 44.8 percent, a figure lower than the 47.3 percent that Gray Davis got in November 2002. Viewed from the Republican side, the disconnect is truly outrageous. Between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 48.5 percent and Tom McClintock’s 13.4 percent, Republicans received 61.9 percent of the statewide vote. Yet in the Legislature, Republicans hold but 40 percent of the Assembly seats and just 37.5 percent of the Senate seats. In other words, a 62 percent statewide vote is producing less than 40 percent representation in the legislature. This is a root cause of the seething unrest among the voters. Gray Davis was the recipient of this rage, but the outrage is bigger than Gray Davis and includes the entire government of California.
The partisans that left King George for the new world did so over the issue of taxation without representation. The eruption of Oct. 7 in California was over a similar feeling, specifically among Republican voters.
This situation is the result of the disastrous partisan gerrymandering that occurred in the last redistricting. The new Schwarzenegger regime would do well to be sure that this grievance is redressed. And to the members of the Assembly and Senate in California, they would be well advised to consider carefully their duty to represent the will of the people of California – and this includes the representatives of San Benito County – or they can be assured that Tuesday’s election is just the opening salvo in the voter’s legitimate demand that they receive real representation in every branch of government.
Al Kelsch,
Hollister
